CDC names members of new safety workgroup

The group will provide guidance to the CDC director and the CDC's new director of laboratory safety, according to a CDC press release.

Kenneth Berns, a distinguished professor emeritus at the Department of Molecular Genetics and the Microbiology College of Medicine at the University of Florida, Gainesville, will chair the workgroup. Berns also currently serves on the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity and is a past president of the American Society for Microbiology.

Joseph Kanabrocki will co-chair the group. Kanabrocki is an associate vice president for research safety and professor of microbiology at the University of Chicago.

The workgroup will consist of nine other medical, science and safety experts.

The responsibilities of the group will include reviewing and providing corrective input for the CDC's laboratories, as well as prioritizing the implementation of additional safeguards. The group will also identify training and oversight needs to develop a culture of laboratory safety at the CDC.

The workgroup is scheduled to have its first meeting in early August and will have frequent additional sessions as needed.

Michael Farrell, the former head of the CDC lab that potentially exposed workers to live anthrax, recently resigned over the incident.